Attention Artists: We are working to compile a running list of international opportunities specifically for Middle East aritsts including: calls for entry, grants, fellowships, conferences, workshops and more.

If you have a listing, please email us at mfarhat@arteeast.org

Quarterly Feature: Artists Reflect on Contemporary International Art
Edited by Maymanah Farhat

With the popularity of Middle Eastern art increasing, several mainstream art publications, including ARTnews, Art Forum and Art in America, have given extensive coverage to art exhibitions in which Middle Eastern artists are represented. Yet little is known about the developments of this art within mainstream discourse. In fact, outside the region, few art historical examinations include discussions of the evolution of modern and contemporary art of the Middle East and its diaspora. This remains highly problematic, as countless exhibitions claim to present audiences with a glimpse into this specific visual culture. A lack of information and understanding frequently allows for the omission of serious aesthetic and conceptual analysis, limiting artists and their work to restrictive categorizations often based on “ethnic” identifications. Such deficiencies in curatorial practice narrowly define the parameters in which the impact of artists is realized in the global art scene since the discourse that results from these exhibitions influences how the art is discussed elsewhere.

In our ongoing efforts to offer critical commentary on the cultural and artistic productions of the Middle East and its diaspora, ArteNews has invited several visual artists to participate in a quarterly feature devoted to examining the current state of contemporary international art. Inspired by late writer and curator Katharine Kuh’s 1960s interviews with seventeen European and American modern artists (such as Marcel Duchamp, Stuart Davis, Georgia O’Keefe and Joseph Albers) (1), five questions were posed to artists of diverse creative backgrounds. By presenting artists with questions concerning the global art scene and their readings of, and individual contributions to, contemporary art, we aim to highlight the breadth of Middle Eastern art. We anticipate that readers will regard this as a unique opportunity to become conversant with the varied experiences and opinions of individuals shaping art today. In short, this special issue intends to underscore how Middle Eastern artists fit in the realm of international art and art history.

Hamdi Attia:

"Artists are struggling to find a way to deal with the complexity of the world today as it is made manifest in multiple and interlinking political, cultural, and social contexts. What makes this struggle very important and difficult for artists is the anxiety over the rise of anti-liberal and right-wing forces in the international political scene, which affects art and its evaluation."

Abdelali Dahrouch:

"The scholarship that informs the interdisciplinary arena of art comprises a heterogeneous field that expands the bandwidth of the ways an artwork can cohere and be engaged. The very premise of scholarship; however, also asserts a notion of expertise and it is this conflation of power and knowledge that has installed the very hegemonic paradigms in art that the visual arts sector has been critiquing for over a century (i.e. the aesthetic paradigm of Western modernism)."

Jayce Salloum:

"There is no one transcendental state of contemporary international art, but if you are speaking of the ‘art market’ then it is generally as it always has been, mediocre, self-serving, ahistorical, neoliberal or conservative (same diff), and mildly titillating from time to time when it needs new blood. If we can label “contemporary international art” as a genre then I would describe it as exemplary of vacuous conceptualism. It is almost like a cloud of chemical gas that floats through the atmosphere and indiscriminately overwhelms the innocents and not so innocent alike."

Athir Shayota:

"Scholarship as it relates to contemporary international art should align itself with movements, not be neutral but maintain integrity as an active speaker and amplifier of ideas and artists, especially those which are kept underground and silenced, in turn destabilizing the perceptions of larger society. True scholarship itself becomes a political act."

Mustafa Ali:

"It is not a desire to know that has pushed art establishments’ interest in Islamic and Middle Eastern art; their motives are market driven, political and economic, resulted in an interest and investment in art of the Middle East in order to transfer it from the local level to the global. It became clear to Western art establishments and the people of the region that Middle Eastern art has elevated spiritual life and behind it philosophical thinking that proves the existence of these people."

Khaled Hafez:

"With the exception of the pioneer and near-avant-guarde curatorial work of Marilu Knode (currently curator at the Scottsdale Museum, Arizona) and Martina Corgnati (Italian academic, art historian, critic and curator, currently finishing her book on Middle Eastern contemporary art practices) who both showed interest in Middle Eastern art practices as early as 1996, and who sensed a “premonition” somewhere in the virtual art spaces that a wave of Middle Eastern art and artists would emerge, I personally believe this current interest only started with the grave incidents of 9/11."

Samia Halaby:

"The liberation movement of Palestine, the important early movement in Iraq during the 20th century and the many original and politicized artists of Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria, are all candidates for serious study and preservation, as they are all threatened by war and destruction. The newly emerging international interest presents a danger of a different type, a type where the carrot to obedience is extended to those that escape destruction."

Athir Shayota: Iraqi Portraits at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery, Jan 19 – 2 Mar, 2007

Body of Evidence: Contemporary African Art including the work of Egyptian artist Chant Avedissian, through February 28, 2007at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

Freer Gallery of Art / Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, Jan. 12- Feb 18

Zeitgeist is proud to present the first ever NEW ORLEANS MIDDLE EAST FILM FESTIVAL, JANUARY 19 – 28, 2007 at the Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center, featuring CinemaEast's LENS ON SYRIA

Zamalek Art Gallery cordially invite you to the opening Reception of the Exhibition for Artist: FAROUK HOSNY, January 21, 2007 through February 14th, 2007.

Le Piliers du Pouvoir: An exhibition of work by Mireille Honein, Jan 17- Feb 3 at the Galerie Janine Rubeiz